First day on the job
1 July, 2015
Training facility
So I have been in the country a little over a week now and I really like it. The place is extremely beautiful and the people are very nice. I still need to adjust to the time change man it is crazy and my body is still not used to it at all. I bet a few more weeks and I will be adjusted properly.
Well today is my first day under contract and that means I get to meet the club! Hopefully they have a positive reaction and that they can trust me. If not well then I have a lot of work to do. I had set up a meeting with the team for some time in the mid afternoon after they get their workouts done but before that I was able to sit down with my coaching staff to go over a few things.
"Hey guys it is finally good to sit down and go over everything with you all. I first want to ask Valentin who is our key players?”
“Well coach glad to have you aboard and in my opinion they areJean-Baptiste Gautier who is a defender and we also have attackerJean-Marc Case here....”
“They both seem to be of a great quality, now Michel can you give me a list of players that we could bring in before the deadline at the end of the month?”
“Sure here they are”
“Looks like a few great options and we should go for them!!”
“So now let me talk about tactics, I am going to be using a 4-2-3-1 that features a counter attack.”
“Sounds good coach!”
“Meeting adjured”
So after a pretty quick meeting I think my coaching staff is all on the same page as me and I like that. Now I have some down time before I meet the players for the first time. Before meeting with the team I go over the clubs league position one more time as I want to use that in the meeting.
So a few minutes later they players meet up with me on the training pitch as I introduce myself.
“Good afternoon everyone my name is Kévin Gauthier and I am the new manager. A little about me I am 33 years old and from Le Havre. This is my first ever coaching job and if that concerns you please let me know. I am looking to make the best of everything and will be learning for mistakes if I make any.”
“Welcome coach we are happy to have you aboard even though this is your first job most of us are excited to get to work under you.”
“Well coach my name is Ulrich Samouan and I am a midfielder here. I on the other hand am not pleased with your hiring, I was hoping that we would get someone with experience but oh well I will deal with it and hopefully you were the right fit.”
“Well Ulrich I am glad you spoke up like that, I don’t want this locker room to hide things and I have an open door policy to say whatever is on your mind, I will look for ways to improve things when needed.”
“Coach you know what I like that you are taking that approach!”
“Ok, well let’s talk about tactics. We will run a 4-2-3-1 and this is how it works (shows them what’s going on with it) I have a feeling you guys will get the hand of it by the first match under me as it is very simple to learn.”
Everyone is curious on that
“So let’s talk about the schedule, obviously I came in the midway of the season and see we are in 5th place10 points behind the leaders Hienghène Sport who are 6-4-0. It will be a lot of work to overtake them and I feel we can, but I think we should settle between 2-4 place. How does that sound?”
“Excellent coach I think that is a good goal!”
“Ok in the cup I think we can win it if we can pull a great run together, opinions everyone?”
“Eh maybe but let’s do one match at a time, that is too much pressure coach”
(Ok wtf dude)
“Ah I see what you are saying but you all need to believe in yourselves, this is a high quality team and we can do it!!!”
At this point it looks like I have pissed off some of the guys but others responded quite well to that statement. I need to wrap this up before things go south.
“Well that is it everyone, it was nice meeting you all, have a great evening and I will see you all tomorrow.”
Ok well for my first meeting it was not that bad at all. The guys seem like a great bunch and I have a feeling we could make a great run this half of a season. My only issue is that a few seem to have negative attitudes and don’t see a positive in the goal of winning the league and cup. I feel they want that but a few were upset that somebody like me is in charge with no background. Well hopefully they change once they see my lead in action.
KEY TO COLOURS
Kévin Gauthier
Coaches
Positive Reaction
Neutral Reaction
Negative Reaction
